There is a map that allows you to locate the most famous people of a certain city. We’ll explain who came up with this curious idea and how it works.
In our everyday lives, we usually use maps to find certain places or to find gas stations and restaurants. More rarely, we try to find specific people. However, there is a map that fulfills exactly this function. It shows you not just any random people – but the most famous people of a certain city.
Map shows the most famous people in your city
When you open the curious map, you will see the names of famous people around the globe. If you click on one of them, a small legend will also appear. It contains the celebrity ranking of the corresponding person and shows what gender they are and whether they are still alive.
On the left side of the menu you can choose between several filters. This gives you the option of displaying people from a specific industry, such as culture or sports.
If you zoom in closer, you can also explore smaller areas. Overall, however, geographic knowledge is required. Although you can switch to the country and city names in the menu, the map does not display both at the same time.
Curious map: data comes from Wikipedia and Wikidata
The idea for the map came from Topi Tjukanov of Finland. He is a professional mapmaker and works at mapping and location cloud platform Mapbox. “Did you know that Freddie Mercury was born in Zanzibar and Barack Obama in Honolulu?” the developer writes on his X profile.
The data for the project came largely from Wikipedia and Wikidata. A research group had collected it and used it to create a database of the most notable people, publishing it in the science journal Nature. Tyukanov used them for his map. However, he prepared the data in such a way that only the person with the highest degree of fame is displayed for each geographical location.
